Francesca Bell

Audio Player



Mistakes of One Kind

The dog was sleek, brindled. 

He couldn’t help people 
wanting to touch him. 

The silence of the beautiful is easy 
to misconstrue.

I offered first my hand, then my face.

What’s very large
is often hard to see. 

His menace was like that. 

What happens fast 
can only be experienced 
in retrospect.

His bite was like that. 

I leaned into peril. Sweetly.
As if into a kiss.

I was always like that. 

My face was sleek.
It caused its usual commotion. 

The dog was brindled, 
big as a man.

Once more, I was almost lucky.

A surgeon can revise 
what a wound has written,
amend the story a dog’s teeth made.

But I prefer to see my judgment
lapsed, then risen on my face.